More than 90% of Americans Prematurely Trash “Expired” Food

By Jeffrey Kopman

Published Sep 20 2013 04:11 PM EDT

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Colorado residents recovering from devastating floods should observe the United States Department of Agriculture’s food safety recommendation: “When in doubt, throw it out!” Supplies that survived the disaster might be unsafe to consume, and should be thrown out, regardless of expiration date.

But for people in non-disaster areas, food products’ expiration dates might not be as hard and fast as most people think, according to a report from the Natural Resources Defense Council and Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic.

Americans unnecessarily throw out billions of pounds of food each year because of food expiration dates. The report calls for standardization and clarification of these dates to avoid confusion.

“We need a commonsense date labeling system that actually provides useful information to consumers, rather than the unreliable, inconsistent and piecemeal system we have today,” said Emily Broad Leib, lead author of the report and director of Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic, in a press release.

Approximately 91 percent of consumers use “sell by” dates to determine whether not a product is safe to use. But manufacturers print these dates to communicate with grocery store operators — not consumers.

Even “best before” and “use by” dates mislead consumers because of inaccuracies, varying state laws and different formulas used to determine the dates.

“Expiration dates are in need of some serious myth-busting because they’re leading us to waste money and throw out perfectly good food, along with all of the resources that went into growing it,” said Dana Gunders, NRDC staff scientist with the food and agriculture program, in a press release. “Phrases like ‘sell by’, ’use by’, and ‘best before’ are poorly regulated, misinterpreted and leading to a false confidence in food safety. It is time for a well-intended but wildly ineffective food date labeling system to get a makeover.”